BY GRANT TERWILLIGER
If you want to see a change in New York at the local, state or congressional level the last chance to register for voting in midterms is Oct. 24. Voters can register through the New York State Board of Elections website for Election Day on Nov. 3.
Empire State Service Corps member Khadeejah Memon said she has been working to foster greater civic engagement and voter turnout in the midterm elections. Memon said that she voted in the last presidential election and found that it was more intimidating than she had originally thought and said she wished that she felt a little more confident in voting.
“I think that our voices need to be heard. That there’s a huge gap in generations,” Khadeejah Memon said. “The majority of people that are voting on laws that affect us are people that are 45 and older. That these things don’t affect them as much as they affect us.”
According to The Civics Center, only 38% of young people ages 18 to 24 are registered to vote in New York State, while 78% of people aged 45 and older are registered to vote. If all young people ages 18 and older were registered to vote there would be 158,000 more voters.
The statewide offices on the ballot for the midterm elections statewide are the governor, the lieutenant governor, the comptroller, the attorney general, assembly members, New York State Senate, U.S. representatives and the U.S. Senate race. Local positions may also be up for election.
SUNY Plattsburgh has a voter registration and voting guide on their website that walks through the process of registering and provides information on where to vote and different ways to cast your vote. Other websites such as vote.org and vote 411 are resources for finding out who is on your local ballot and how to register.
Daniel Lake, professor and director of the institute for ethics in public life, said that most people who don’t vote either don’t think their vote matters or don’t know how to vote.
“I was telling my students, change your registration to vote here if you want it to matter because this is a competitive race,” Lake said. “If you care about the politics and policy and what they stand for, we’ve got a pretty strong difference in terms of agenda and ideas between Constantino and Gendebien. And we’ve got a close race.”
There are several ways to cast your ballot including voting at your designated polling location on election day, requesting an absentee ballot, and voting early in person at a designated location in your county.
A contingency with the midterm elections is the possibility of control of the Senate or House of Representatives flipping from Republican to Democrat, currently both chambers are republican. If control of one of the chambers of Congress changes then the current administration may find it harder to pass legislation.
“If we don’t do the bare minimum of voting, then we’re giving up our power in a political system that is based on the idea that we have the power,” Lake said. “They work for us.”
